So much for the 916 idea, mate...

 

Readers would know that I posted an advert for Green Hornet's sale on 25/12/2012, as I had been offered a fellow reader's ride. I'm already not riding enough with my busy business travels, so it would be rather wasting for me to hog 2 nice rides- so I toyed with the idea of selling off Green Hornet and topping up some RM20k for a Ducati 916 from the nineties. 

It was just as well that I had a business travel shortly after posting the advert, and was so unable to show the prospectus buyers on the excellent Green Hornet. I have no doubt that it would have sold off in a jiffy otherwise; as bare-spec ER6-f of the same year was already selling at around RM26k - RM30k, with the higher-priced ones being low mileage examples.

One of the sales on Mudah had similar Givi Italy side-panniers and a Yoshi exhaust can, and that bike was going at RM29,740. My Green Hornet was decked with so much more after-market branded accessories that costed some RM10k; so if it had been sold at a similar RM30k, the buyer would have gotten a bargain bike price at RM20k only.

There were some offers to trade-in some readers' bikes eg Ninja 250r, Blade 650r, etc but the bike that I was considering was the iconic Ducati 916.

After I came back from my trip, I arranged to test-ride the reader's 916 and I understood his point why he wanted to change to a more chiropractic-friendly 1,000 cc sports tourer or easy-rider. No doubt the bike was way beautiful and I would have loved to have it for my weekend ride; but the bike's nature needed you to ride it hard and the very sporty riding position was not really conducive to slow rides.

In the end, I decided that I would best hold onto my Green Hornet, which has been a really reliable and nice ride. The search for an alterntive ride continues then...